Destiny, Valor, and a Lizard Named Louie is a chapter book intended for ages 8-12. I didn't think my 8-year-old could handle this reading level, so I decided to ask my 15-year-old son to read the book. Since the title contained the word "lizard," he heartily agreed. The book's title and cover illustration would pull even the most resistant male preteen reader into the story. I also decided to read it aloud to my 6 and 8-year-old sons. I had to change some of the wording as I was reading as you will see next.

The book is about a little boy lizard who goes through dark and difficult times. Louie's royal mother and father were dead, but he was soon adopted and raised by a peasant family in order to hide his royal identity as prince. Later, his adoptive father and brother were murdered. He was taken from his mother and sister and was so depressed he wanted to die. Having children with tender hearts, I found these parts of the book very difficult to get through and explain.

The chameleon enemies were ruthless in their tyranny over the lizard population. Evil schemes and tragedy flow through the book. Through it all, Louie goes from questioning who he is (a chameleon or a lizard?) to becoming the true prince he was born to be and leading the lizards to conquer the enemy. This was a good ending, but there was just too much darkness for this homeschooling mom. The book also put across the idea that if you are searching for "who you are," you will eventually find yourself and all will be right merely because it was in your destiny. And you fulfill your destiny by knowing who you finally are and acting on that knowledge.

My older son said it had a good plot and held his interest, but it was not a Christian book, although it did weave in some good values here and there. A major part of the story that my 15-year-old did not like at all involved Louie (at about age 14 or 15) being pursued by a girl on the enemy's side who was trying to tempt him to become a chameleon. She tried many ways to get his attention by flirting. He finally gave in to her advances.

The ideas presented of "pairing up" were disturbing to me: "Louie knew many of the lizards his age were beginning to pair up with lizard friends of the opposite sex." I had to remind my younger boys that this was not what we believed was the right thing for 14 or 15-year-old children to do. They should have their attention focused on serving the Lord and allowing Him to bring a wife to them of His choosing in His timing. This sentence really appalled me: "Holding hands with her one day, he realized he didn't know her very well at all." My boys were also astounded that they were holding hands without even being married yet, let alone not even knowing each other very well. So, if you are as conservative as we are in our views on dating and boy/girl relationships, you may have to skip this chapter or even skip the book.

Some really good points about the book are that each chapter defines more difficult vocabulary words at the bottom of the page on which they appear. And at the end of the book is a Study Guide for each chapter that includes vocabulary words and comprehension questions. As a homeschool mom of seven children, four of which are boys, I like resources that capture the interest of the child as well as add in the learning exercises so that I don't have to do that work myself. Getting boys to read is sometimes difficult, but getting them to write can be even harder. This book will keep their interest and have them answering questions and looking up vocabulary words on their own to find the definitions. Two thumbs up there!

However, if you are a very conservative homeschooler like me, you won't appreciate some of the things mentioned in the book as I noted above. So, although the interest for boys and educational content was excellent, the darkness of the storyline and the parts where I had to let my boys know where our beliefs differ left me thinking that I wouldn't want my boys to read it again. If these are things that don't bother you or if you would be glad to have the opportunity to use the book for discussion purposes, then it might be a good resource for you.

Product review by Deborah Wuehler, staff reviewer, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March 2007